AP GOV UNIT 4 ULTIMATE REVIEW

Core beliefs of Americans

1) individualism

• emphasis on self-reliance and independence

2) equality of opportunity

• belief that every American, regardless of their race, ethnicity, sex, religion etc deserve equal footing to go after life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

3) free Enterprise

• little government intervention in economy as possible

4) rule of law

• every citizen is equal under the law, no one has special privileges

5) limited government

• government kept under law, checks and balances, and separation of powers

Conservatives V Liberals

Conservatives: cherish established and inherited institutions and seek to preserve them for the good of society. Tend to emphasize smaller government, which provides fewer services to the people.

Liberals: push for new reforms in order to make society more just and equitable.

1) individualism

• Conservatives: emphasize interest of individual above interests of society

• Liberals: interest of society above the interests of the individual

2) equality of opportunity

• Conservatives: believe in the power of meritocracy, people rise based on their hard work

• Liberals: agree with meritocracy but they believe that not all groups start at the same place

3) Free Enterprise

• conservatives: want government out of businessess and want free market to determine what’s best

• Liberals: want the government to intervene with appropriate regulations to ensure safety and equality in workplace

4) rule of law

• Conservatives: laws themselves embody equality and thus emphasis letter of the law

• Liberals: agree that laws embody equality but they emphasize the unequal application of laws in regards to minority groups

5) limited government

• Conservatives: define strong boundaries of federalism. Less government interference in people’s lives.

• liberals: embrace the need for government intervention in society. For sake of greater good.

Political socialization

1) Family

• children will often hold the same or similar political opinions of their parents

• biggest early influence on political ideology

2) Schools

• shapes how a student thinks about politics

• history classroom

3) Peers

• social conformity plays a big role in what a person believes

4) media

• gives young people a wide range of viewpoints

• shapes our beliefs and language according to what we see

• with the rise of cable news in the last 20 years, there has been a rise in conservative and liberal interpretations of everything that happens

5) Civic/religious organizations

• ex: boy scouts/girl scouts

• ex: attending church,mosque, synagogue (conservative v liberal)

6) globalization

• increasing interconnectedness of the world by means of economic partnerships

• political influence comes as well

• ex: immigrants bring culture to the U.S

Generational effects

A person’s voting behavior and political ideology is very much influenced by the generation into which they were born.

Silent generation:

• born before 1945

• tend to have a high value of religious belief and church attendance

• conservative

• consistently votes for candidates who style themselves as tough on crime and terrorists

• don’t understand push to legalize marijuana

• vote in higher numbers than any other group

Baby boomers:

• born after WW2 to mid 60s

• more liberal than silent generation but still vote conservative

Generation x:

• born mid 60s to 80s

• first to use the internet

• slightly more liberal than baby boomers

• more ethnically diverse

Millennial:

• 1981 to 1996

• more liberal than any group

• more ethnically diverse than any group

• lead hard into the liberal policies of the Democratic party

• favorable towards immigrants and more socialist policies

• the 4 generations of today’s adults fit into a tidy political pattern. The older you are the more likely you are conservative and the younger you are the more likely you are liberal.

Life-cycle effects

whatever stage of life a person is in will contribute to their political beliefs and behavior.

ex: if you are 18 years old and casting your first vote during the 2020 presidential primaries, you might have been very attracted to a candidate like Bernie Sanders who ran on a platform of free college tuition. At that stage in your life, that matters a lot to you.

Political events

any event that is deemed significant in the life of our nation. Can have a disproportionate effect on our political beliefs.

Silent generation: Spent their formative years struggling through the great depression. The silent generation grew up in the midst of unimaginable hardship and they witnessed the growth of the federal government. Therefore, that event with the government’s performance led them to trust the government to intervene for their safety and well-being.

Baby boomers: lived through the Vietnam war and trust in the government diminished. Boomers responded to these events with a large-scale migration from the Democratic party to the Republican party. This event influenced their voting behavior and Ronald Reagan was elected for his belief that the government was the problem.

Millennial’s: 2001 terrorist attacks. Believed the attack was due to America’s over intervention in the Middle East for decades. So in response to this event, millennials have a keen sense of foreign policy and how American interacts with the world. Led them to vote for candidates who champion cooperation.

Scientific polls

• public opinion is measured through scientific polls, which is were we ask people what they believe and hopefully they tell us

• if a poll is created with scientific rigor, then it is the best tool for measuring public opinion

• The process includes: writing questions that are free from bias, presenting questions to a small, randomized group of people, and then generalizing results to the larger population

Types of polls

Opinion poll

• helps get a feel for the public’s opinion on a certain topic or discerning people’s feeling on certain candidates or policies

Benchmark poll

• taken at the beginning of a candidate’s run and gives the campaign a benchmark against which they can compare future polls to see how the candidate is faring

Tracking poll

• conducted over time, usually with the same group of people, gives information on how the group feels about a given issue.

Entrance/exit poll

• conducted at voting sites that ask people how they voted

• most desirable because they’re measuring actual voters

Sampling Methodology

• a sample needs to be representative: having the same characteristics as the larger population it’s measuring

• Sample needs to be random: Everyone in a given population has an equal chance of being included.

Political ideology

an interlocking set of ideas that form the basis for political decision making

Conservative ideology: emphasizes the traditional social structures and existing structures of authority

• limited government in public affairs

• strong stance on crime and punishment

• champion states rights above federal power

Liberal ideology:

• emphasizes civil rights for the marginalized and supports the efforts of social justice movements to ensure everyone has equal access to civil liberties

• emphasizes government involvement in public affairs

Republican party

• most closely aligns with conservative ideology

• Party platform: set of policy goals published by the party, which tells you the kinds of legislation they would pursue if their candidate should win

• established traditions and seeking to uphold them

Democrat party

• most closely aligned with liberal ideology

• want to end poverty, break up corporate concentration, universal healthcare, citizen rights

• emphasizes diversity and protesting

Debate over English language

• every year conservative propose making English the official language and every year it dies. Want to do this as they believe it will unite Americans of all backgrounds and would save billions in federal and state spending

• Liberals reject the idea of making English the official language as they see it as a tool of oppression, and in some cases racist.

• example of how ideology affects and informs policymaking

Ideology in policy making

Personal responsibility and work opportunity: Law addressing welfare policies which provided government funds to the poor. Triumph for liberalism.But conservatives started arguing against welfare and the act ultimately limited welfare payments to 5 years. Win for conservatives.

Dream act: addressed immigration and more specifically the situation of immigrants who entered the country illegally but were minors. Set a criteria through which minors would not be deported and could become citizens. Obama issued an executive order to address the situation.

Fiscal policy

Decisions the government makes about government spending and taxation.

Monetary policy

Decisions the government makes about how much money should be in the economy.

Federal reserve:

• buying and selling government bonds

• setting reserve requirements

• setting interest rates

Ideology and Economic policy

Liberals: favor most government intervention in the economy. government spending and government regulation of business is what keeps the economy strong and everyone secure. Liberals are big spenders in fiscal policy. Keynesian economics states government needs to Intervene in economy to keep it from failing.

Conservatives: less government intervention in the economy. Letting the free market determine people’s choices is far better solution than getting the government involved. Upholds peoples freedom to make their own economic choices. Want less programs and taxes. Supply-side economics.

• Conservatives tend to favor using monetary policy to stabilize the economy while liberals tend to believe that monetary policy is too slow to effect real change.

Ideology and social policy

Liberals: for abortion believe it’s a private decision and should not be regulated as well as marriage.

Conservatives: abortion is not a private matter and should be regulated as well as marriage. But don’t want government intervention with guns. Education and religion want as little intervention.